Bluenose Model Shipways 1:64 Beautiful ship

[Rob444]

Being fairly new to shipbuilding I am slowly progressing to more and more complex builds. However i must say that even before I knew her name I always thought that the Bluenose was a simply beautiful ship. The flow of her hull is striking. I was able to get a secondhand kit of the model shipways build (MS2130). I have had it stored away for some time. We currently have 2 houses on on the east coast and one in Arizona. I recently set up a small workshop in mt Arizona house and I decided to build the bluenose here, when we are here on vacation.

That being so, this build log will progress in fits and starts depending if I am here. As of this time I have already been working on it for a while, but I have saved pictures of the build and I will "catch up" to my current state of where I am.

I am really using four sources of information to build. One is the instruction manual which appears to be fairly complete, but does a lot of things in a sequence I find not quite logical. The 3 other sources I am using is Jeff T's build.

Bluenose - Model Shipways MS2130 - 1/64 - By JeffT [COMPLETED BUILD]

I will be building the Model Shipways Bluenose (MS2130) in 1/64 (3/16"=1') scale. This is one of the ships I have wanted to build for some time. I got pretty lucky when purchasing the kit and got it at a super sale price when Mode Expo moved their warehouse last year. The Bluenose will be...

shipsofscale.com

The build from the suburban ship builders site.

Bluenose Canadian Schooner – The Suburban Ship Modeler

The Bluenose is a 1920’s Canadian fishing and racing schooner. This build was based on the Model Shipways kit. This was chosen as my second build because it is bigger, a little more involved, and …

suburbanshipmodeler.com

And Gary Brinker's You tube series.

I have studied all of them and they are all excellent. I have learned that there are at least 4 different ways to do this build and they all come out looking great!

So Lets go.

Here is the kit



I am not sure how old my copy of this kit is but it appears pretty good. There are some pieces missing that I will have to scratch build, but all in all it is fairly complete.

The set of plans that come with it look fantastic. As did with my Constitution cross section, I hung the plans up on the wall using a magnetic holder used for posters, very convenient.

The 3 parts of the keel fit together quite well. I glued them with some epoxy on a sheet of wax paper and let them set. After that I drew in lines for the bulkheads and labeled them. Taking a copy from the plans I cut out the outline of the rabbet and copied them on both sides. You can notice on extremely weak area on the frame, where bulkhead N is located. With my usual luck this of course snapped and i had to repair it with some epoxy and a small nail. I then beefed up the joint with some pieces of wood glued to each side of the frame.



I cut the rabbet and bearding line, mostly using an exact chisel blade. The plywood used here did not allow for as smooth a cut as i would wish, but I smoothed it out later with sanding sticks.

 

[Rob444]

Here are two later pictures of the areas that I reinforced. The first is the area by bulkhead N that snapped off. Like I said I glued it on with epoxy and a nail and then placed 2 small pieces of wood to beef it up.


The two joints of the keel were also reinforced with scrap pieces of wood non each side.

 

[Peter Voogt]

Nice to see the start of the (vacation) build of your Bluenose, Rob. I will ad it to the BN-List.
As a ‘BN-lover’ I sat my chair!
Regards, Peter

 

[Rob444]

Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the placement of the bulkheads. Unlike some other reports, My bulkheads fit perfectly in place and were exactly at the level of the top of the keel piece. I clamped them in place using lego pieces as others have done to insure squareness of their installation. The pieces fit very well and did not require much, if any adjustment. The bulkheads were attached with PVA glue. The stanchions on top of the bulkheads were trimmed to 1/8th" square using a small jig to insure everything was aligned. Many people cut these off and place false one on. I thought it best to try to leave these here to give me better support and alignment when I build the bulwarks.

As you can see, after the bulkheads were glued into place and the glue dried, I reinforced the bulkheads with strips of wood to prevent flexure. I was afraid the bulkheads would snap off when I was fairing the hull. These strips provided a lot more structural rigidity and i recommend them. I measured the space between each bulkhead to cut the strips. The space seldom varied more than 1mm at most between one set and the other and were almost always the same port of starboard. This gave me a lot of confidence that the bulkheads were set correctly.



The bulkheads were then faired using long sanding strips I made by using pieces of foam board glued to sandpaper using rubber cement. I find these boat boards have some "give" and make sanding easier. When the sandpaper is used up it is an easy matter to take it off and replace it with a new piece.

 

[Rob444]

Next up were the horn timbers. There are 2 small strips of wood that go along the rear of the keel to support some of the planking as it goes from an area with a rabbet to the transom. After installing these strips I took a piece of planking to makes sure they would fit well. One side was set too far away from the end of the keel. I took a thin strip and glued it agains the horn timer to give it the correct "depth".


After the horn timbers the stern blocks were next to be installed. These are two blocks in the rear of the ship that shapes the transom area. You get a block of wood that you cut into 2 pieces. I then took a copy of the finished block from the plans and glued them onto the plans in 2 dimensions. Using a small jeweler's saw I cut out a rough outline of the blocks in 2 planes. Fitting them agains the last bulkhead they for well against the bulkhead and the keel. They were then glued into place. Once the glue thoroughly dried I shaped the pieces with some course sandpaper. This took a while. I wanted to make sure the pieces were symmetrical and the curves smooth. I was pleased with the results.

 

[Rob444]

I then attached the "Great beam" these are 3 transverse members that divide the foredeck from the quarterdeck. The instructions would have you install this after putting in the waterways, but this made absolutely no sense to me (or the other 3 build logs I have seen). The great beam is made up of 3 laser cut parts that have a gentle curve. One goes in front of of the H bulkhead, where it provides a place for the foredeck plans to land on. To get it level with the bulkhead you have to notch out the keel piece in front of the H bulkhead. This was easily done with a file.


On other builds for some reason there was a rise here because of the bulkhead and they had to install a shim to get the decking to fit. For my build it seemed to fit perfectly.

 

[Rob444]

Nice to see the start of the (vacation) build of your Bluenose, Rob. I will ad it to the BN-List.
As a ‘BN-lover’ I sat my chair!
Regards, Peter

Thank you Peter!

 

[dockattner]

Rob, you remain the fastest builder I know...